CRL Research Affiliates to attend Bioinformatic Bootcamp at PSU

Biological Data Analysis: “The Right Way Bootcamp” took place June 6-10, 2016 on the campus of Pennsylvania State University (PSU). Cobb Research Lab affiliates, Michael Campbell, Keely Clinton, Christopher Cross, and Latifa Jackson were granted acceptance and travel awards to attend a week long boot camp to learn about biological data analysis. The camp was organized by the Computation, Bioinformatics and Statistics Predoctoral Training Program at Penn State, supported by the NIH T32 program. It aimed to highlight the importance of accurately analyzing bioinformatic data. This is especially important in the current era of big data where mass amounts of information are becoming available yet the analytical tools and expertise needed to understand it are limited. GitHub, Galaxy, and R were the key programs of focus that directly align with our research interest. GitHub allows tracking of and more readily exchange of data files. Galaxy is a dynamic system used to not only source big data files but also some in-house analytics. R is a well-known programming language for coding. The five-day camp was well structured and highly informative. Each of the CRL affiliates in attendance learned a lot and are currently expanding their knowledge in this area to advance their research. It is important to note that this computational biology space needs more people of color in order to maintain inclusion and diversity of thought in the development of new computational algorithms. This is critical because interpretation of these results have been used to initiate clinical trials and will continue to be used for future studies to develop therapies to even policies.

The bootcamp was funded by the Administrative Supplement to NIGMS Predoctoral Training Grants (PA-15-136). ****